Missing
by vespertine dreams
Summary: #3-- Patrick goes to Santa Barbara to help in the search when Shawn goes missing. Shawn/Patrick slash. Reviews welcome.


**Notes**- All of my Psych/Mentalist fics can be read as stand-alones but if you want the whole list so far, the reading order is-

The Fake Psychics' club

Fake Psychics Reunited

Missing

The Bet

Moving On

Unconventional

________________________________________________________________________

Missing.

"So, how long until you've got a weekend off?" Patrick Jane asked, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder as he continued to tap away on his laptop.

"What are you doing?"

He stopped typing. "Case report. Lisbon is making me fill one out because she said that I made most of the mess she'll have to try and explain to the Director."

"And did you?" Shawn Spencer asked with a laugh.

"No! Well, OK, a little," Patrick admitted. "Anyway, from what I've heard about you, you have no room to comment on my methods."

"Oooh, touchy!" There was another laugh. "So, what are you wearing? Another of those totally sexy suits?"

Patrick couldn't stop the snort of surprised laughter at the abrupt change of conversation, causing his colleagues across the office to turn to him curiously. He smiled at them innocently and lowered his voice to answer,

"Well, I'd hardly be sitting in the office in my underwear, would I?"

There was a moment of silence over the phone before Shawn spoke again. "Sorry, just picturing that… _Nice_." Shawn sighed happily. "So, how about next weekend? We aren't in the middle of any cases and I'm sure I can think of some reason why I won't be available if anyone needs me."

"It's a date."

"Goody! Now, about that underwear… What colour is it?"

"Shawn, I am sitting in the office with four people who are pretending not to listen," he said, looking up as the four aforementioned people tried in vain to appear as though they _hadn't_ been listening in. They couldn't have looked more guilty if they'd each had a flashing neon sign above their heads that read 'eavesdropper, right here!'. "I am not telling you."

"Aww, Patrick," Shawn begged. "C'mon, please."

Patrick sighed, though he didn't mind Shawn's playfulness half as much as he said he did. Oh, he was never going to hear the end of this from Lisbon and the others…

"Fine," he said. "Royal blue. Silk."

He had kept his voice as low as possible but from the smiles on Lisbon and Van Pelt's faces, the two women had heard him loud and clear and had figured out what the question had been. As they glanced at each other and giggled like schoolgirls, he saw Cho and Rigsby asking what they had found so amusing and gave them a glare. _Don't you dare_, it said. Not that they paid any attention; Lisbon leaning over the desk to whisper to the two men, causing Rigsby to almost fall off his chair laughing.

"See what you've done?" he told Shawn. "I'm going to get teased over this for days!"

Shawn sniggered. "Poor baby! You know, they're just jealous because I get to see you in just those little blue boxers and they don't."

"You can't be jealous of not having something that you've never seen in order to know that you want it in the first place," Patrick pointed out, desperately trying not to look at the others as his cheeks heated up.

"That's adorable, you know," Shawn told him, still chuckling. "You get all flustered when you're embarrassed."

Before Patrick could argue, he heard a voice in the background and then Shawn let out a surprised, "Hey!"

"Shawn?"

No response. There was a sharp crack that sounded like a mobile phone hitting the ground and then, as though from a distance, Patrick heard Shawn's voice again.

"_What the hell? Get off me!"_

"Shawn? Come on, talk to me, please."

Nothing. This was not good. As Shawn would have put it, his psychic spider-sense was tingling.

Still keeping the phone to his ear, just in case, he hurried over to Lisbon's desk, ignoring the little quip she made about the earlier overheard conversation.

"I think something's wrong," he told her.

Lisbon looked up into his eyes and her expression sobered. She had been around him long enough to know that his warnings were usually best heeded.

Five minutes later, Lisbon got off the phone with Chief Vick of the Santa Barbara PD. Since Shawn's phone was still on- Patrick could hear the noises of footsteps and traffic passing by in the distance- Lisbon had run a trace on it before calling the SBPD.

"They're sending an officer to check it out," she told Patrick. She eyed his sceptically.

"Something is wrong," he told her again. "I know it sounds far-fetched but you have to trust me."

She nodded. "I do, and that's why I called them."

"Thanks." He really meant it; not everyone would trust a bad feeling enough to send people to check it out, even one from him. Teresa Lisbon was a good friend.

-------

It was perhaps the longest two hours of his life. Detective Lassiter from the SBPD called them at just after four in the afternoon, confirming Patrick's suspicions.

"We found his phone in the street, where you said it would be," he told them, "but there's no sign of Spencer. I checked with his office and friends, even his dad, but no one has seen him."

Assuring them that he would call if they had any more news as they looked, he hung up. Patrick turned back to Lisbon.

"I'm going," he told her. "I know that he'll probably turn up soon with a good excuse but…"

Lisbon smiled. "Go, it's fine; I'll clear it with the Director." Glancing up, across the room, she added, "Rigsby, you're driving."

"I don't need him to take me," Patrick protested.

"Jane, you might be damn good at hiding it, but I'm getting better at reading you," she informed him softly. "I can see how worried you really are and I think it would be better if Rigsby drove you there."

-------

Seven hours after Patrick had heard Shawn's phone hit the ground, they still had no idea of where he was. Patrick and Rigsby had arrived in Santa Barbara and gone straight to the police station, only to receive questioning looks as they walked through the door. Having the CBI come in usually meant one thing to most of the cops around here; they were here to take a case from the SBPD.

"They're with me," Detective Lassiter told the officer on the reception desk. He had seen them arrive, seen them get stopped at reception, and gone to collect them. "This way."

He greeted them both, remembering them from the last time they had met. That time, the CBI _had_ come to take over a case.

"We aren't here in a CBI capacity," Patrick told Lassiter. "I'm just here to help if I can. Rigsby just got conned into driving me."

Rigsby shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal. "I kinda like Shawn so if I can help at all, just let me know."

When they reached the office, there were already five people sitting there.

"Agent Rigsby, Mr Jane, I was expecting you." Chief Vick quickly introduced them to the rest of the people, some of whom they knew from their last visit. The one he didn't was an older man sitting on the corner of Lassiter's desk.

"This is Henry Spencer, Shawn's father."

Henry looked him over suspiciously, arms folded across his chest. His face gave nothing away; even Patrick couldn't read him, something he wasn't accustomed to.

"Why are the CBI here?" he asked eventually. "What'd that kid of mine get himself into this time?"

"Nothing," Rigsby told him. "We're here in an unofficial capacity, just want to help find Shawn."

Henry's gaze never left Patrick. "So, you're him, huh?"

"Sir?"

"Polite, I like that," Henry told him. "You're the guy Shawn has been seeing."

Well, that answered that question. Patrick knew that Shawn had told his dad he was gay but he wasn't sure if his name had ever been mentioned. Turned out that it had, or else Henry possessed Shawn's ability to garner information that people hadn't volunteered. Whichever, maybe it was best that it was out in the open; it would save him having to pretend he was nothing more than a colleague whilst he was around Henry.

"Yes, I am."

Henry regarded him a moment longer before he finally held out a hand to Patrick.

"Good luck," he said dryly, his smile genuine. "You're gonna need it with Shawn."

As soon as Detective Lassiter had filled them in on what they had found so far, which was basically nothing, Patrick asked to speak to the officer who had found Shawn's phone.

"Could you take me out there?" he asked once the young man had told him.

Lassiter nodded and announced that he was coming too, following them out of the door and leaving Rigsby at the SBPD.

Shawn had been about two minutes from his office; that's where they found his phone.

"What position was it in?" Patrick asked Officer McCauley. At the young man's confused expression, Patrick took his own phone from his pocket and handed it to him. "Lay it on down in the same place and position as you found Shawn's."

Patrick crouched down next to it.

"What are you doing?" Lassiter asked.

"The phone landed on the ground," Patrick said, almost to himself, thinking aloud. "There were footsteps, going away from the phone but they sounded hollow-" He suddenly stood and turned. "The alley. It would have made the footsteps echo. Detective Lassiter, do you know if there is a surveillance camera that catches wherever that alley leads to?"

Lassiter nodded and made a phone call as he and McCauley followed Patrick into the alley. Half way through, Patrick paused to study something on the ground.

"Scuff marks," he said, indicating to a faint trail in the dirt.

Damn. Shawn was being dragged by this point. He couldn't dwell on what might be, however, as that would get him nowhere. Lassiter ended his call and informed Patrick that there was a camera that caught the street at the end of the alley and that the footage was currently being retrieved.

--------

"Look, there he is." Detective O'Hara pointed to the screen. Behind her, the others crowded in to see better. "He's still walking on his own so he can't be hurt," she said.

On the screen, Shawn was led down the street by a large man with dark hair down onto his shoulders and a baseball cap on his head. O'Hara shuttled through the footage until she came up with a rare moment when the man looked upwards, freezing the image.

"I can make it a little clearer," she told them, zooming in and cleaning the picture up as much as she could.

Gus leaned over her shoulder, studying the image. "I know that guy," he said, shocked. "He's a client, well, kind of. About eight months ago, we had a client; she'd been having trouble with her landlord. She was convinced he was behind some of the weird stuff happening but since she had no proof, she said the police wouldn't help."

"What kind of stuff?"

"She thought that someone was coming into her flat at night, going through her things, following her," Gus told them. "He was, by the way; he got twelve months in jail after he abducted her."

"So, do you have a name for this guy?"

"Yes, James Burton."

O'Hara ran his name through the database. "Detective Lassiter, according to this, James Burton escaped three days ago."

Lassiter sighed. He didn't like the sound of this. If Shawn had been the reason this guy had been arrested, Burton wasn't likely to be too forgiving.

-------

Shawn pulled at the rope binding his wrists together and to the chair he was currently sitting on.

"Mr Burton, this is pointless," he told the big man standing before him. "All you've done is earn yourself an arrest warrant for kidnapping."

The guy leaned down, his hands on the arms of Shawn's chair, his face close enough to Shawn's for him to be slightly revolted by the man's bad breath.

"You ruined everything," Burton growled. "All you had to do was back off; she would never have told those lies in court if you hadn't interfered."

"Dude, you were stalking her!"

The moment the words came out, Shawn regretted them. His dad had always told him that he ran his mouth off before thinking. Now he'd just proved the old man right by provoking a lunatic who'd kidnapped him. _Good going, Shawn_.

-------

After searching through his records, O'Hara could only find one address for James Burton; his former apartment. When he had been convicted, however, the apartment building he had been managing had been turned over to a new manager so that address would be useless. She looked for family and friends, anyone he could be staying and came up with his mother.

Lassiter got his jacket, the others following him to go and speak to the mother in the hope that she would tell them something that would lead to Shawn.

"OK, let's go." Lassiter turned to Patrick, Gus and Henry. "You are staying here."

No matter how much the three men protested, Lassiter was firm on the subject and the three reluctantly sat down. Rigsby dropped into the chair next to Patrick.

"Shawn'll be fine," he said.

Patrick was glad of his positivity but it didn't shake the feeling that things didn't always turn out the way you wanted them to. He'd lost his family before and it had almost destroyed him; he didn't think he could face losing someone else, especially not someone who meant as much to him as Shawn did.

That thought surprised him a little; he hadn't really thought about it too deeply, simply enjoying what he and Shawn had. Now he realised it was a little more than just 'having fun', at least on his part.

"I hate this," he said to Rigsby, getting up to pace to the window. "I can help, they know I can."

Rigsby shook his head. "You're too close to this," he pointed out. "If were back at the CBI, Lisbon would tell you the same thing."

Henry got up to lean against the window sill next to Patrick and they stood in silence for a while before Henry finally spoke. "That kid of mine has been getting into trouble since he was born," he said. "Thing is, he always managed to talk his way out of it as well. Then he got mixed up in this whole psychic mess…"

"I know all about the psychic mess, as you call it," Patrick said.

Henry smiled faintly. "I guess you do." He studied Patrick for a moment. "I gotta admit, I was kinda surprised when I met you. You're not what I was expecting."

"That a good thing?"

"Definitely," Henry told him.

-------

Shawn came to with a crick in his neck and no feeling in his hands. He tried to move but the memory of exactly where he was came racing back. He flexed his fingers to get the feeling back into them and glared around the room. All around, furniture and boxes were piled high, making the space feel even smaller to Shawn, sitting in a cleared area on his chair in the centre.

It was dark in here, the only light coming from a small window high up on the wall. At least that told him it was daylight outside; when he'd last looked up the sky outside had been darkening. That meant he'd been here all night. The thought didn't do anything to ease the gnawing worry in the pit of Shawn's stomach. What if no one had even missed him yet? No, they would. Patrick would realise something was wrong or Gus would. Even Lassie would eventually begin to wonder why Shawn wasn't there to annoy the crap out of him.

There was no sign of Burton, nothing since he had given Shawn something to drink… That must have been drugged, Shawn thought. He'd wondered how in the hell he'd managed to sleep in this predicament.

Burton hadn't seemed to know what he was actually doing last night. To begin with, Shawn had thought this was about revenge for getting the man arrested but then Burton had started going on about Louisa Reynolds.

"I know why you made her tell those lies about me," he'd said. "You just wanted her all for yourself, didn't you? Had to get me out of the way…"

There was no way that Shawn could argue that. If he denied it, Burton would accuse him of lying to save his own skin and if he played along and confirmed it, Burton would likely hurt him. The thought of pointing out that Ms Reynolds was missing one vital part of the anatomy to be of romantic interest to him had been tempting but ultimately would lead to the same outcome.

Well, there was no way he was going to sit here and wait for that nutcase to come back. If he could get out of these ropes then he could find a way out of this damned room, he thought, trying to work the knots loose.

-------

Patrick pushed off from the window sill and straightened his jacket.

"I've had enough of sitting around," he announced, heading for the door.

Rigsby jumped to his feet and hurried to catch him up. "They told you to wait here."

Patrick continued walking until he reached the car and climbed in, as did Rigsby. "Yes, and I did for a while. Now I'm not."

He turned as Henry and Gus got into the back seat and smiled as Henry asked, "So, where are we going?"

Patrick took directions from Gus as they drove out to the apartment building that had been managed by Burton. It wasn't the Ritz, not by a long shot, Patrick thought as he looked up at the four storey building. The whole place was in serious need of cleaning up, a view confirmed when they got inside the lobby.

"That's the manager's apartment," Gus told him. "I hate to ask, but what exactly are we going to do? I mean, not one of us is actually officially meant to be here."

He had a point. They had a CBI agent who wasn't here officially, a consultant to the CBI, a civilian and an ex-cop.

"Let's just hope he doesn't ask for ID," he told Gus as he knocked on the paint-peeling door. Gus and Spencer held back, not wanting to make them any more obvious than they already were.

The door opened a crack and a man peered out. "Who are you?"

Patrick offered a charming smile. "Jane and Rigsby," he said. "CBI."

Well, he'd never actually said that they were working on a CBI case; it wasn't his fault if the man assumed that they did.

"Mr Wachowski? We need to speak with you about James Burton, the manager who was here before you took over."

The man frowned. "I thought that psycho was locked up?"

"May we come inside?" When the man removed the security chain, Patrick and Rigsby followed him into the lounge and took a seat.

"I was wondering if you had a forwarding address for Mr Burton," Patrick asked.

Wachowski looked at him as though he were crazy. "Yeah, jail." He eyed them thoughtfully for a moment. "He's out, isn't he?"

Patrick's expression didn't change, giving nothing away. "Who collected his belongings? I assume that he wasn't given the time to clear his apartment himself."

"No. When I got here they just told me to box all his shit up and they'd have it sent to his mother," Wachowski told them. "Thing is, she wouldn't take it. Told me to put it into storage, so I sent it there instead."

"Would you still have the address for that storage facility?"

-------

Henry read the piece of paper in his hand one last time and then the number above the metal shutter of the unit.

"This is the place."

Gus hung back near to the car as the others got out and headed for the unit. "Maybe we should call Lassiter," he said. "He told us to keep out of this."

Henry glanced back at him and rolled his eyes as Patrick pointed out,

"Actually, he only told us to wait at the station. You've already broken that rule so you might as well come with us."

"You're as bad as Shawn," Gus grumbled. "He never listens to a damn word I say either."

Ignoring him, the other three turned to the storage unit. The front was almost completely taken up with a metal shutter, a smaller door to the left for easy access. Both had heavy padlocks on them.

"Up there." Henry pointed to a tiny window about eight feet off the ground and then looked around at the others. "Well I'm not climbing up there."

They looked between each other for a moment before, as one, they turned to Gus, seeing his eyes widen comically as he realised that he had just been volunteered.

"I'll give you a boost," Rigsby told him. "Sorry, man, but you're the lightest so, up you go."

Still protesting that they should leave this to the police, Gus reluctantly balanced on one foot in Rigsby's laced hands and pulled himself up to the window.

"I can't, no, hold on," he leaned a little further to the right before turning back to speak to the others. "I see him! He's in there!"

Unfortunately, in turning around to speak, Gus upset the precarious hold that Rigsby had on him, knocking them both over. They landed in an undignified heap on the concrete, Rigsby cursing like crazy as Gus apologised.

-------

Shawn frowned, concentrating on the commotion outside. It sounded like an argument but he couldn't hear much more than muffled voices. Or maybe burglars. Great, he thought; how pathetic would that be, for robbers to find him tied to a damn chair in a storage unit. The sounds outside stopped for a moment and he strained his ears to listen for them, jumping at the loud crash.

"Shawn? It's OK, we're here to get you out."

No, he had to be imagining that; the voice sounded like his dad. Another voice chipped in just before two men rounded the corner of the pile of boxes.

"Patrick? Dad?" OK, so he hadn't imagined it. "Damn, I have never been so glad to see you."

Patrick quickly cut the ropes on his wrists and pulled him to his feet. He'd been sitting for so long that his legs had gone to sleep and so Patrick supported his weight as they made their way to the door.

"Gus?"

His best friend beamed happily when he saw Shawn, his attention quickly turning back to the phone he held to his ear and listening.

"Rigsby is in the car," Patrick told him, telling the others to get in as well. He wanted to be as far away from here as he could before James Burton noticed that his captive was missing.

They all bundled into the car and headed back to the police station. Patrick sat in the back with Shawn. The other man had curled up against his side, refusing to let go despite the fact that his dad was sitting on his other side. He was so quiet, something that Patrick wasn't used to; usually Shawn talked non-stop about anything that happened to come into his head whether it was relevant or even made sense. This silent Shawn worried him. Of course, despite his usual 'I don't care' façade, Patrick knew that something such as this would affect him. No that he would let the others see that, however.

"I knew you'd come and find me," Shawn told Patrick eventually, reaching up to pull him down for a kiss.

There was a dramatic sigh from his other side. "Just because I know what you two get up to, don't mean I want to sit next to it," Henry grumbled. Shawn actually smiled as Patrick's face pinked slightly. "Besides, it's not like he came to get you on his own."

Shawn could see Gus nodding in the front seat. "I know. Thank you."

-------

Lassiter was not a happy bunny, Shawn thought as he watched the Detective getting madder and madder as Patrick and the others told him what had happened. Well, not Gus; he had chosen to back himself out of the line of fire and was waiting until things calmed down again before re-emerging. Agent Rigsby was keeping quiet as well but his dad was on top form.

"Maybe if you'd bothered to listen to Mr Jane here you'd have been with us when we found my boy," he pointed out. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm taking Shawn home."

Henry walked out, the other three following, to collect Shawn from his seat in Lassiter's office. Shawn looked up at Patrick and his dad noticed.

"Come on," he told Patrick and Rigsby. "Since I don't guess you'll be going back just yet, you better come with us."

It wasn't until they reached the house that Patrick realised how exhausted he was. He was used to not sleeping much and it didn't really bother him. In the last day, however, he'd spent nearly the whole time worrying about Shawn and now it caught up with him. He could see that the others were in a similar state, Henry announcing that he was going to bed as soon as he was sure his guests were alright.

As Rigsby dropped onto the couch, leaning back comfortably, Patrick followed Shawn up to his old room, getting him settled into bed before standing to go back downstairs.

"Don't go." Shawn grabbed his hand to stop him. "Come to bed, please."

Patrick nodded, quickly shedding his suit, draping his clothes over the back of a chair, and slid beneath the covers. As soon as he did, Shawn snuggled closer.

"You will stay, won't you?"

"I'm not going anywhere, Shawn," Patrick told him softly. And he meant it.

End.


End file.
